scare tactics….

Nobod has mentioned paint schemes yet.

Did “shark’s teeth” on the nose of, say, P-40s have a psychological effect on their opponents?
Were some German WW1 fighter aces’ aircraft brightly painted to scare the hell out of allied aircrews?
A little more tenuous perhaps but were not photographs of allied bomber crews with the nose art (including bombing tallies) used as propaganda to strike fear into the German population?

Roger Smith.

The early B-17s had painted broom sticks in the tail area to scare Japanese pilots into thinking they had tail armament…like the later B-17Es thay had encountered.

Likewise, the Doolittle Raid B-25s had similar “guns” to save weight.

The Douglas Boston A28-8 ‘Jessica’ at the RAAF Museum has a single fixed Browning .303 fitted in the far aft of the hull. My understand is it would’ve been filled with only tracer rounds; a Zero approaching in the killing zone dead aft would get a squirt of tracer, and break up or down, giving the ventral and upper gunners a chance with their aimed guns.

The early B-17s had painted broom sticks in the tail area to scare Japanese pilots into thinking they had tail armament…like the later B-17Es thay had encountered.

Likewise, the Doolittle Raid B-25s had similar “guns” to save weight.

Watched a report on the “Sunday” program here near ANZAC day last year.Apparently the SAS in Iraq called in a F14 to do a low level supersonic run past a power station to get the enemy troops inside to surrender.The sonic boom smashed every window in the place and the Iraqi,s surrendered without firing a shot.

ive heard a similar story about the u.s. airforce in the gulf using scare tactics, apparently they were dropping leaflets on the iraqis saying they wre going to bomb their barracks or postions by dropping leaflets, then the next day smashing the iraqi’s positions with laser guided munitions to prove to them that they had total domination of the skies, and it also had the effect of thining out the iraqi defence by generating fear of what was to come. nowt worse than knowing youre going to be bombed and nowt worse than u know its coming ant u cant do anything about it

Indeed, its no “story”. Its called “Effects Based Operations”. There’s quite a lot on various websites under “Psychological operations – leaflets – air” from WWI to 2003 Gulf War.

ive heard a similar story about the u.s. airforce in the gulf using scare tactics, apparently they were dropping leaflets on the iraqis saying they wre going to bomb their barracks or postions by dropping leaflets, then the next day smashing the iraqi’s positions with laser guided munitions to prove to them that they had total domination of the skies, and it also had the effect of thining out the iraqi defence by generating fear of what was to come. nowt worse than knowing youre going to be bombed and nowt worse than u know its coming ant u cant do anything about it

there was a program on sky the other evening about the audio gear used by the US military in the Gulf to blast propaganda, sounds of artillery and heavy metal music to **** off the iraqi’s. They’ve a new system now which as well as being horribly powerful is extremely directional – you can stand alongside it and not hear a thing, stand in front of it and wish you were dead.

If they’d listened to me and played country music… not a shot would have been fired.

Roy.

LesB,

Afraid you’ve got that wrong. QRA was instituted to enable crews (air and ground) to get training in and become proficient at Uckers or the board game Risk. The duty was also used as a very efficient method of disposing of obscenely large quanities of German eggs in the form of huge omlettes.

Oh, how true! And a chance to grow your hair a bit as the SWO wasn’t allowed into most Strike QRA sites; it didn’t work on air defence QRA though. Lovely memories of days and weeks on Q.

The RAF installed a rearward firing flamethrower in the bomb bay of a Beaufort. It never went beyond the trials stage though.

Best wishes
Steve P

That’s because they forgot to open the bomb bay doors before firing it boom boom 😀

Didnt some He111,s have a flamethrower in the tail as well?Having heard of the grenade launchers.

The RAF installed a rearward firing flamethrower in the bomb bay of a Beaufort. It never went beyond the trials stage though.

Best wishes
Steve P

Doh Doh 😮 , good one Barnowl mate G’day 😉 , yep that was about WW1 average.

Didn’t the German’s fit special air brake’s to their aircraft :rolleyes: , so they could slow down and shoot pommie plane’s :p , the constant over shoot’s must have been a real pisssoff :dev2: .

Related, I like what Tony Fokker once said, They have built in head wind’s those beast’s 😉

Ciao.

probably, before the Camel and SE5a arrived, then us pommies gave as good as we got.. 😉

Try:

Thanks James – the exact words had completely escaped me.

Just a few oddities on the subject:
The patterns ,such as spirals ,on German Fighter Aircraft spinners in WW2 were allegedly to confuse defensive gunners.
Apparently the tail guns on the Doolittle raid B-25s were replaced with broomhandles as a weight-saving measure.
A Wessex in Northern Ireland in 1974 chased and eventually dumped fuel over a car fleeing a Vehicle Check Point. The car then stopped and the bemused occupants surrendered.

Well although it doesn’t quite meet the question I say the thought of going to war in a Blackburn Botha scares the waste substances out of me.

😉

Wasn’t it the Botha that elucidated the following write-up from a test pilot after his first test flight……………..

“Entry to this aircraft is extremely difficult. It should be made IMPOSSIBLE!”

Ken

PS – Isn’t the painting sharkmouths and such on ones aircraft designed to scare the enemy ???

PPS – The Russians painted eyes on their MiG-23’s & Su-25’s to scare the BIRDS! :diablo:

Didnt some He111,s have a flamethrower in the tail as well?Having heard of the grenade launchers.

Try:

I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.

I am reminded of the Duke of Wellington’s remark about his troops which went along the lines of –

“I don’t know how the French feel, but they certainly scare me”

Ha!

Doh Doh 😮 , good one Barnowl mate G’day 😉 , yep that was about WW1 average.

Didn’t the German’s fit special air brake’s to their aircraft :rolleyes: , so they could slow down and shoot pommie plane’s :p , the constant over shoot’s must have been a real pisssoff :dev2: .

Related, I like what Tony Fokker once said, They have built in head wind’s those beast’s 😉

Ciao.

i suppose you could call the frequent Soviet flights near NATO airspace during the cold war a type of scare tactic. this in turn gave NATO airforces a need for QRAs.

Afraid you’ve got that wrong. QRA was instituted to enable crews (air and ground) to get training in and become proficient at Uckers or the board game Risk. The duty was also used as a very efficient method of disposing of obscenely large quanities of German eggs in the form of huge omlettes.

😉

not forgetting of course the leaflet dropping raids made by Bomber Command over German citys in the early part of the war.. has enyone eny idea what these leaflets was, what sort of things was wrote on them.
i suppose you could call the frequent Soviet flights near NATO airspace during the cold war a type of scare tactic. this in turn gave NATO airforces a need for QRAs… 🙂

Perhaps there were some bad German jokes in them. We found a large amount of leaflets in a crashed Lancaster. They were in excellent condition and as good as the day they were printed. One of them spoke about the u-boat war and Churchill was quoted that their days were numbered. Also the amount of bombs being rained on Germany and that kind of stuff. propaganda now is the same as then.
Wonder if there are people who believe what they are being told.
Cees